Imperial Justice

Africans in Empire's Court

Bonny Ibhawoh

A ground-breaking study of the role and motivations of the Imperial Appeal Courts in Britain's African colonies

Examines a little-studied area, making an important contribution to the growing literature on the history of imperial law and justice

Provides a comparative approach drawing parallels between historical and contemporary trends of justice in former colonies

Landmark cases illustrate the impact of colonial justice on British jurisprudence through the Empire and beyond

Imperial Justice

Africans in Empire's Court

Bonny Ibhawoh

Description

Imperial Justice explores the imperial control of judicial governance and the adjudication of colonial difference in British Africa. Focusing on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and the colonial regional Appeal Courts for West Africa and East Africa, it examines how judicial discourses of native difference and imperial universalism in local disputes influenced practices of power in colonial settings and shaped an evolving jurisprudence of Empire.

Arguing that the Imperial Appeal Courts were key sites where colonial legal modernity was fashioned, the book examines the tensions that permeated the colonial legal system such as the difficulty of upholding basic standards of British justice while at the same time allowing for local customary divergence which was thought essential to achieving that justice. The modernizing mission of British justice could only truly be achieved through recognition of local exceptionality and difference. Natives who appealed to the Courts of Empire were entitled to the same standards of justice as their 'civilized' colonists, yet the boundaries of racial, ethnic, and cultural difference somehow had to be recognized and maintained in the adjudicatory process. Meeting these divergent goals required flexibility in colonial law-making as well as in the administration of justice. In the paradox of integration and differentiation, imperial power and local cultures were not always in conflict but were sometimes complementary and mutually reinforcing. The book draws attention not only to the role of Imperial Appeal Courts in the colonies but also to the reciprocal place of colonized peoples in shaping the processes and outcomes of imperial justice. A valuable addition to British colonial literature, this book places Africa in a central role, and examines the role of the African colonies in the shaping of British Imperial jurisprudence.

Imperial Justice

Africans in Empire's Court

Bonny Ibhawoh

Author Information

Bonny Ibhawoh, Associate Professor, McMaster University

Bonny Ibhawoh is an Associate Professor of History and Human Rights at McMaster University. He teaches and researches in the fields of African, imperial and legal history, human rights, and peace/conflict studies. His last book, Imperialism and Human Rights, was named Choice Outstanding Academic Title.

Imperial Justice

Africans in Empire's Court

Bonny Ibhawoh

Reviews and Awards

"In his engaging new book, Bonny Ibhawoh navigates his reader through the complicated operation of imperial legality by uncovering the worlds of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) and the colonial appeal courts of West Africa (WACA) and East Africa (EACA) ... Throughout the book, Ibhawoh strikes a good balance between explaining the big picture and the details of many fascinating landmark cases ... This book successfully addresses pertinent questions about the nature of globalization by showing how both empires and marginal actors used judicial spaces to construct their own vision of power, citizenship, and Sovereignty." -Trina Leah Hogg, Journal of African History

"Imperial Justice opens the door of a rich archive that provides an additional lens to examine histories of empires. Along with laboratories of legal modernity, appeal courts also showed the forced insertion of Africans within liberalism, individualism, and capitalist monetization of human emotions such as grief and pain as well as the establishment of local rigid social hierarchies. Imperial Justice: African Empire's Court is a necessary monograph on the relationship between jurisprudence and the British Empire." -Giusi Russo, Montgomery County Community College, The International Journal of African Historical Studies